Washington rescuers fear mudslide death toll will rise

Tuesday

Mar 25, 2014 at 8:08 AM

ARLINGTON, Wash. — Worries of a rising death toll continued to mount Sunday when rescuers could not penetrate a forbidding mudslide that killed at least three people and left as many as 18 more missing in northwestern Washington, officials said.

ARLINGTON, Wash. — Worries of a rising death toll continued to mount Sunday when rescuers could not penetrate a forbidding mudslide that killed at least three people and left as many as 18 more missing in northwestern Washington, officials said.

"Mother Nature holds the cards here," Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said Sunday afternoon. He added that the devastation left behind by the Saturday mudslide into a cluster of rural homes along the Stillaguamish River, just east of the small town of Oso, "is just unrelenting and awesome _ there really is no stick standing in the path of the slide."

As of Sunday, rescuers had been unable to find the source of voices heard among the mud and wreckage Saturday evening, despite a search that included helicopters and hovercraft, officials said.

Some firefighters waded into a square-mile slurry of mud and became stuck up to their armpits, officials said, needing to be pulled out by rope.

Despite the effort, however, there have been no more residents rescued since seven people were extricated on Saturday, officials said.

"We have families across the state this moment who are wondering about their family members, and the anxiety of that is beyond description," Inslee said. "Every human possibility is being explored here to rescue and find their loved ones."

The mudslide, which has blocked an important rural highway as well as the Stillaguamish River, came after an unusually heavy month of rain.

An evacuation order for residents downstream was lifted Sunday morning, but officials warned it could be reinstated. The water was building up behind an artificial dam created by the mudslide and could give way again, officials said.

U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene said the community of Darrington, about 12 miles east of the slide, has been "isolated" because the mud destroyed Highway 530, which provides an important route for that community of 1,359 residents to reach Washington’s populous Pacific coast.

Inslee said it wasn’t known when that highway would be restored.

"There is literally not a vertical stick standing in that square mile" of mud, Inslee said. "Everything within that path has been leveled, and that is something I have certainly never seen before."

Inslee’s office issued a declaration of emergency on Saturday night, and he said state officials were in contact with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to seek emergency funds.

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